The Madrid Review is a top-notch addition to the European literary scene, both online and in print (see their website via this link). I'm delighted to have three poems and a prose piece in their forthcoming issue, which is packed with big hitters. Here's a sneak preview of the cover...
Rather
than going for a provocative hot take, I’ve waited ten days since
returning from the U.K. before posting my reflections on the trip. A total of five
readings in six days was certainly an intense experience, and it gave me a real
feel for the poetry scene right now.
First
off, it served as a timely reminder that 99% of U.K. poetry exists beyond
social media and isn’t even aware of many trendy self-publicists. This is
especially true beyond the big cities and festivals, at readings above pubs or
in arts centres in provincial
towns, where people attend and buy books through a pure love of the genre.
These people, of course, are my readers.
Secondly, I was struck by just how many remarked on their disillusionment with
the direction that many major journals, festivals and publishers have taken in
recent years. In fact, there’s clearly a sizeable chunk of poetry readers,
purchasers and aficionados who feel disengaged with current fashions. And I’m
not just invoking embittered white male OAPs here. Event after event, I
encountered varied members of my audience coming up to me at the interval or
once the reading finished, champing at the bit to discuss the issue, expressing
deep frustration.
As
an individual poet, I can plough my own furrow, reaching out to readers via
initiatives such as my recent tour. But a wider issue remains. The disconnect
between the London-centric Poetry Establishment (in its changing guises) and
its customer base beyond a miniscule social media bubble has never been
greater, with the impression that the former has turned its back on the latter so long as the funding keeps rolling in.
That’s
a dangerous state of affairs for any genre that wishes to achieve anything
beyond mere narcissistic self-expression, self-flagellation and self-adulation. Where do we go from here?
Whatever You Do, Just Don't...Miss It! My September tour, that is, five readings in the space of six days. It would be great to see you at one of them...!
In
recent conversations with a friend (Hi Mat!), the Spotifying of poetry came up.
By this term, I don’t mean that poetry is necessarily moving to Spotify, though its presence is certainly growing there.
Instead, I’m referring to changes that are taking place in how we consume both
music and poetry.
The
emergence of Spotify seems to have encouraged people to listen to hit after
hit, each from a different group or singer. And in a similar way, social media
appears to have enabled us to scroll straight from one individual poem to
another. Bearing in mind that most of us are listeners as well as readers, has
the shift in how we consume music also played an additional role in altering
how we approach poetry?
However,
there’s still a trenchant percentage of people who prefer albums, for the way
tracks bounce off each other, for the layered, more accumulative listening that
helps us appreciate artists more. And then we've got the álbum tracks, which we
often end up treasuring more than the hit singles themselves.
And
along similar lines, single-poet full collections still have a niche. I believe
there’s such a thing as a collection poem, for instance, rather than a magazine
poem. A collection poem might be slight if offered up on its own, but it complements
the bigger poems around it when placed in the context of an ms, establishing
dialogues and connections that run through a book and provide the whole with
greater depth.
In
fact, I have to admit that I’m starting to wince when I see poets and readers
stating on social media that a poem is a banger. Banger after banger can get
extremely tedious and mind-numbing after a while. As can hit after hit on Spotify…
I'm delighted to feature a poem by Barry Smith today, taken from Reeling and Writhing (Vole Books, 2023), his most recent collection, which is something of a retrospective. In fact, it includes work written across half a century, encompassing a range of styles from sonnets and songs to mock heroic satire, spinning off ideas from the Sixties to the Twenties!
The poem's title is ‘Supplicant’. It's technically adroit, accumulating details, layering them deftly, gradually drawing us in. Much of its power lies in its use of reportage, never telling the reader what to think. Instead, it juxtaposes observations and invites us to engage with its religious and societal ramifications, lifting what might first appear a mere anecdote into resonant verse. I hope you enjoy it...!
Supplicant
As
if called to midday prayer he hunches
on
all fours, his back turned to the abbey
where
angels and pilgrims blithely
ascend
heavenwards gripping stone ladders
flanking
iron-studded oak doors
while
solemn attendants collect entrance fees.
The
crouching man kneels in convocation,
vision
fully engaged with grey pavement
as
a blackly bristling wire-haired terrier
stands
guarding his singularly suppliant master,
sole
immobility in this crush of busy shoppers
hustling
beneath civic Roman colonnade
rising
in fluted stonework above.
No-one
pauses or seems to witness,
no
hasty handful of change clinks by his side,
only
the pool of liquid spreads
slowly
suppurating the patch
between
recusant dog and man.
Barry
Smith
(first published in Liminal, a Chichester Stanza Anthology)
There’s
no doubt that Submittable has revolutionised the process of submitting poetry
to journals over the last few years, both for poets and for editors. It’s
terrific for the former, who are able to make submissions in minutes, follow
their progress and keep track of what they’ve sent where, rather than relying
on spreadsheets or trawling through emails. And then it’s also extremely useful
for the latter, enabling them to free up their email inboxes, structure their reading
in terms of drawing up long and short lists, and ensure stuff doesn’t get left
behind.
Moreover, the use of Submittable appears to have involuntarily generated certain
trends in terms of the poetry that journals are publishing, due mainly to the
vastly increased numbers of submissions that its ease of use has encouraged.
For example, if a single, individual editor receives over 18,000 poems a year
via Submittable (a reasonable figure for certain major magazines, as indicated
to me in private by a couple of those editors), their attitude to accepting or
rejecting those poems inevitably changes, whether they admit it to themselves
or not. The consequence seems to be that Submittable’s use lends itself to
poems that generate an immediate impact, given the editor has seconds to view
each poem on the screen before making an initial decision whether to hold or
dismiss the piece in question.
In
this context, it’s also worthwhile for poets to put themselves in an editor’s
(or magazine publisher’s) shoes. With the current rules of play, some poets
boast on social media of having a dozen or more subs on the go at any one time,
often using a scattergun approach because they have no skin in any journal’s
game.
And then many poets simply see magazines as an outlet for the work rather
than as an integral part of the creative process of discovering new work by contemporaries,
of keeping up with the scene. They fail to recognise that poets and editors
should sit around a metaphorical table rather than stare each other down from
opposing sides of a decrepit fence, the former bombarding the latter with subs
and then wondering why communication breaks down.
Some
editors are thus changing the way they use Submittable, operating with
submission windows. The latter option might reduce impromptu,
spur-of-the-moment, chuck-a-few-poems-their way subs, but it still tends to provoke
an absolute avalanche of subs as soon as the window is opened, often leading
to it being closed abruptly once the journal’s limit with the platform is
reached.
Another option is charging for poets to send their work in via
Submittable, justifying this payment in the context of the fees that magazines
themselves have to pay for use of the platform. These submission charges are
typical in the States, but highly controversial in the U.K., not least because
of the consequent implicit exclusion of poets who have limited financial means.
What
might be a potential solution? Well, in order to find a solution, it’s best to
identify and address the problem. And the problem, from my perspective, isn’t
Submittable as such, rather the fact that its emergence has coincided with a worsening
of the age-old issue that there are too many writers and not enough readers of
poetry, thus creating a perfect storm.
Everyone
wants to be published in print-based journals and no one wants to buy them. For
instance, let’s imagine that 18,000 poems a year equate to about 5,000 poets submitting,
If all of them bought an issue of the magazine in question, the mag would be
able to pay its way. And just imagine if half of them then went on to
subscribe! The financial sums involved aren’t inconsequential – they might even
reach the equivalent of many ACE grants.
So
why not take Candlestick Press’ example and apply it to major journals? They
stipulate that (unless you are a concession or suffering financial hardship)
any poet who wishes to take part a Candlestick competition should first buy one
of their pamphlets. Or what about Rattle, who include a year’s subscription in
their admittedly hefty competition entry fee? Or Crannog, who request the
purchase of their current issue by any submitter who’s never previously been
published by them? This condition also means that the poet in question receives
a good dose of contemporary poetry in return for submitting, keeping something
tangible that they can read even if their work fails to be accepted.
Underlining,
of course, that it’s crucial to put in place measures to avoid the problem of
potentially excluding poets of limited means (by detailing a list of
exemptions), I see no reason why many print-based journals shouldn’t follow a similar policy. Bearing
in mind that most magazine guidelines state that poets should read an issue
before subbing (and many poets ignore that advice completely), such a system
would provide them immediately with loads of excellent preparatory material.
Furthermore,
fewer submissions would arrive via Submittable, meaning that editors would no
longer be so overwhelmed, while the poets’ engagement with the magazine would
also be greater! This process wouldn’t only ensure a greater commitment on the
part of the submitting poet,but also longer print runs, stronger sales and
continuity of the journal beyond endless funding applications. What do you
think?!
If
you can’t be bothered to read a print-based magazine, do you deserve to be published by
it?!
Kevin Bailey has generously written a terrific review of Whatever You Do, Just Don't for HQ Poetry Magazine, so terrific that I'm almost willing to forgive him for calling me Matt! Here are a couple of quick quotes... This is superb and engaging poetry - highly recommended and worth getting. As a poet-of-sorts myself, when I start to think ‘I wish I'd written that’, I know that the experience of engaging with their work is going to be a good one.
